The lender sold 412 million new shares at 8.88 ringgit each
to local and foreign institutions after increasing the size of
the offering to satisfy “strong” demand, Kuala Lumpur-based
Maybank said in an e-mailed statement today. The final price was
higher than the 8.80 ringgit earlier indicated.

Maybank, which plans to use the proceeds to bolster capital
and expand in the region, would consider buying a retail bank in
Thailand, Chief Executive Officer Abdul Wahid Omar said last
year. General Electric Co. said last month that it’s reviewing
options for its remaining stake in Bangkok-based Bank of Ayudhya
Pcl after selling an initial 7.6 percent.

“Bank of Ayudhya will be a good vehicle to enlarge
exposure to Thailand given its high net interest margin and
niche in consumer loans,” Low Yee Huap, an analyst at Hong
Leong Financial Group Bhd., wrote in a report today. “We
suspect it could be to bid for General Electric’s 25 percent
stake in Bank of Ayudhya,” he said, referring to Maybank’s fund
raising.

The Malaysian lender has been expanding in Southeast Asia
to reduce its reliance on domestic earnings, acquiring Singapore
brokerage Kim Eng Holdings Ltd. last year. It already owns bank
stakes in Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam.

The placement was the largest equity sale by a Southeast
Asian lender since Maybank raised $1.63 billion through a rights
issue in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The
price is a 1.2 percent discount to the 8.99 ringgit that the
stock closed at in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 5.

“We believe GE’s intended exit from Bank of Ayudhya
provides Maybank a good opportunity to explore,” Lim Sue Lin,
an analyst at HwangDBS Vickers Research Sdn., wrote in a report
today. “This would be positive as Maybank positions itself as a
regional bank.”

Maybank, which earned 28 percent of pretax income from
overseas operations in the six months ended June 30, plans to
generate 40 percent of operating profit from outside Malaysia by
2015, Wahid said in August last year. It wants to be in all
major markets in Southeast Asia by that date, he said.